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Young joins rare group with 1,500 games

Young joins rare group with 1,500 games

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OAKLAND -- Michael Young hit another milestone on Thursday night, playing in his 1,500th game with the Rangers.

He is the fourth player to reach that level with the club, following Rafael Palmeiro (1,573), Jim Sundberg (1,512) and Ivan Rodriguez (1,507). He is also one of seven active players who have played at least 1,500 games, and they've all been with one team. The others are Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Todd Helton, Jorge Posada, Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols.

Young is going to keep playing, at least until the Rangers clinch the division title. He leads the Rangers with 148 games played and has not been out of the lineup since missing back-to-back games on Aug. 18-19 because of stiffness in his neck. All other teammates have had at least a couple of days off in that stretch, but not Young. He did get two innings off in an 11-4 victory over Detroit on the last homestand, but that's it.

"Part of my role is to play," Young said. "I'm a little beat up and a little banged up, but this is not the time for me to rest. This is the time for me to keep playing."

He was 1-for-4 with a sacrifice fly in Wednesday's 12-inning victory over the Angels but is still 4-for-26 in his last six games, dropping his average to .284. He is also hitting .238 in his last 46 games.

On the other hand, Young has not made an error in his last 19 games and he went into September making it clear he wanted to tighten up his defense. He is not overly concerned about his offense.

"I feel fine," Young said. "I'm going to just stick to my same approach. If I do that, things will go in my favor and I will get results."